Comprehensive Co-Buying Services

Typical Co-buying Process

1. 1

   Individual Reflection

   Free

   Work out why you want this, what you want in a home, and what you can actually put down. Nothing here costs anything and you do not need a group yet.

   Attend an event → Start the questionnaire →
2. 2

   Initial Group Formation

   Free

   Talk to the friends, family, or matched buyers you might do this with. Get the obvious things on the table early: budget, neighborhood, dealbreakers.

   Open the co-buying resources (PDF) → Book a call with Aidan →
3. 3

   Group Alignment

   $750 per person

   This is our Service 1. Three facilitated sessions that take a group of interested people and turn them into a legally structured, financeable buyer.

   See what's included

   $750

   per person, paid $250 before each of three sessions

   Patti Lautner runs three working sessions with your group, and after each one the group decides together whether it is continuing. Nobody is locked in and nobody is on the hook for the next session until everyone agrees to it. What comes out the other end is a group that has a legal structure, a budget it agreed on, house rules it wrote itself, an exit plan signed before anyone needs it, and a financing package organized well enough that a lender reads five people as one strong application instead of five separate risky ones.

   What the $750 covers.

   The decision on your legal structure.

   LLC, tenancy in common, or cooperative, selected for how your group actually plans to live and how it plans to get out. Forming it is the attorney's work in Stage 4.

   A complete organizational package.

   Governance, decision rights, expense splits, house rules, conflict resolution, and exit terms, documented well enough that an attorney can turn it into a binding operating agreement instead of starting from a blank page and billing you for it.

   Group buying power.

   Individually and as a group total, using real income, real debt, and real savings.

   Down payment assistance eligibility.

   Checked for each member, including Boston's $50,000 zero-interest program, and we walk you through the applications.

   Your ownership split and your exit.

   The methodology for who owns what, and what happens when someone wants out, agreed before anyone signs anything.

   Your financing package.

   Income documents, assets, and entity paperwork organized into one application that a lender can actually underwrite.

   Lender and attorney introductions.

   To lenders who have closed group loans before and know what they are looking at. No lender pays us anything for these introductions.

   Your archetype, determined.

   Which of the three below your group actually is, based on budget, horizon, household mix, and what you each want out of the next ten years.

   The pre-approval push.

   We submit, we chase, we sit on the calls. We cannot approve you, that is the lender's decision, but we can make sure nothing about how your group is organized is the reason it stalls.

   We like to be clear about how we get paid. While we make introductions to lenders and attorney's we've vetted, we do not get paid by them and you're free to use your own. The $750 per person pays for the time we put into each individualized session and any other work that will get you ready to put in offers, the 3% at closing pays for the brokerage work, and the attorney and closing costs go to the attorney and the closing agent directly.

   Buy with us and the $750 is refunded.

   If we act as your buyer's agent, the Service 1 fee is refunded at closing. Also note that oftentimes the seller pays most or all of the buyer's agent fee, so you could be paying very little out of pocket.

4. 4

   Group Structure

   Estimated $2,000 for the whole group Paid to others, not us

   An attorney forms the legal structure your group chose with us and turns the organizational package into binding documents. Lenders issue pre-approvals. We have a vetted list we can introduce you to or you can use your own.

5. 5

   Offers

   3% at closing, less the seller's contribution and Service 1 fees

   This is our Service 2. We represent the group as buyer's agent, run every property through our analysis, negotiate, and manage inspections and underwriting through to a signed deal.

   See how we analyze properties

   3%

   of purchase price at closing

   A property that works for one buyer is a completely different property from one that works for five, and most of what makes a co-buy succeed or fall apart is decided before anyone makes an offer. We represent your group as buyer's agent, run every property you are considering through the analysis below, negotiate the deal, and manage inspections, insurance, and underwriting until it closes.

   The seller is usually offering compensation to whoever represents the buyer, and whatever they offer comes off what your group owes us.

   What we filter by.

   Price per bedroom.

   Total down payment and monthly cost broken down per bedroom or per unit, because that is the number each person is actually deciding on.

   Layout viability.

   Whether the property can give each household real private space. A good price means nothing if people are on top of each other.

   Condo conversion potential.

   For Condo Neighbors groups, whether Massachusetts condo conversion is realistically feasible on this specific property.

   Much more.

   The property analysis we've built is incredible, and we're happy to share this with groups that are interested. Reach out to learn more.

6. 6

   Closing and Moving In

   Estimated 1% of purchase price Paid to others, not us

   Closing attorney, inspections, and the fund transfer. Then move in!

   Book a call with Aidan →